Just A Word
by moonswirl
Summary: Gleekathon, day six hundred and three: Emma has some decisions to make, and a blank shirt seeking a word she can't even speak.


_Started my daily ficlets to make the hiatus pass, then decided to keep going with a 2nd cycle, and then a 3rd, 4th, etc through 28th cycle. Now cycle 29!_

**TOP 16, TAKE 2: **_Okay so a couple cycles back, I did my second 'top of Glee at the moment' cycle. Now since I was still in university and such at the time, those were planned a while back, before the second half of the season every started. This made it that by the time that cycle rolled around I realized that some things had changed... Things were added, removed, bumped up... Point is it didn't really reflect where I was anymore. So I decided 'what the heck, I'll do another one ASAP!' And so here we are :) This is my revised Top 16 (of course I HAD to plan before the finale, so there are still a couple things missing like Samcedes, Unholy Trinity, etc, but let's assume they're there ;) They'll get some love in coming cycles ;)) So off we go!  
><strong>Coming in at number six...<strong>_

* * *

><p><strong>"Just a Word"<br>Emma, Emma/Will **

She had actually started despising her shirt… the first one, the one she'd made and worn to her demonstration with the Glee Club. Even for all her shaking confidence, the way she'd shown it to all of them, she knew it wasn't her. She didn't know what made it worse, that she knew, or that others did… Will, most of all… She wasn't being true to herself, but then how could she?

She knew she had these issues; she had lived with them all her life. But then there was that… She had lived with them, and even if it meant having to live with some adjustments to how she did some things, it didn't have to mean she was any worse off. She was alright, so why should she have to go and put a name on it that came with all this other baggage she really didn't feel she needed to carry? She was who she was, and she was okay… Wasn't that enough?

Except now, she was starting to see the ways in which it could be… problematic. Her whole history with Will, and then Carl, and then Will again, well… It had been an eye-opener, if she had to pick the word. But then if her eyes had supposedly been closed all this time, then it would take some time for her eyes to settle, and to understand what they were seeing, all of it so new.

All this time she had been hearing things from others, heard what they thought of her and her problems with 'the messy things,' and she had just shrugged it off. Only now she couldn't do that anymore. She was starting to understand just what her life had become, and as much as she could pretend everything was fine, the truth was she had started to see things were not as good as she thought they were. But then what was she supposed to do? Change didn't just come because you wanted it, when you wanted it. Now that she had started to change, it wasn't an easy road… There were so many new questions, new blocks in her path. So now she had to deal with those, too.

The biggest hurdle was hers alone. No one else would see the word as anything more than what it was, on the surface… Three little letters, and nothing more… Three letters that would stretch large and bold across her chest if she ever dared to print them on another white shirt… for everyone to see… For everyone to judge… when she didn't even know what it meant to her.

She didn't want what came with it… Why couldn't she just be fine with her personal issues, let them be so little? They wanted her to make them big, that was what they wanted her to do, she knew it…

But she did want to have some things, which would only happen if some things changed. More than anything she wanted happiness, and peace with herself. She wanted to know that when she got to have this thing in her life, or this person, that it wouldn't get taken away from her because of problems getting too big and clashing with her holding on to what she had. It had all happened to her so many times already, each time only reinforcing this knowledge that she was ruining her own joy, time and again. And then she thought of why she'd lost the latest thing... Carl…

She knew the way she felt about Will all this time, even if she couldn't be with him for one reason or another. Underneath all of it, she still loved him, it was just a matter of whether she could let herself think about it or not. First she couldn't, because he was married. And then he wasn't married, and she finally got to live in the sun… Then she'd dropped it, like she always did, and she was bound for the shadows again. After that she'd try not to listen again, and to be honest he made it easy for her… He was so confused with himself that he just wasn't the Will she knew anymore… Even then, her emotions weren't silent, which only hurt… Maybe that was why she'd opened herself to Carl, like it would make everything fine, but… She never stopped, not once… She only had to fall in love with Will Schuester once, and she was set for life.

And he still wanted her too, but… she was so scared that they would try again and then they would fail again and maybe they'd never get a third chance and…

She didn't know when the moment came, that she decided to call about that therapist. She just knew all of a sudden that she needed to try it, if only for herself, to know that she'd tried. So she'd called, made the appointment. Maybe it would all just be a waste of time, because she was either beyond help or, really, like she saw it, not that worse off like everyone thought… But maybe she could find the strength in her to return to that press, and place a brand new white shirt on it, turning it into the start of a new path in her life, her life… and their life, together.

But if she was going to do this, she knew one thing above all else. Yes, some of it had to do with Will, and wanting to be happy, with him, but it couldn't be for his sake. If she wanted to make a change, it was for herself, because she mattered enough to herself that she was willing to take – at the risk of sounding obvious – a new direction. Her life, her rules, her decision to move forward or not, to make her happiness so she could then share it with others… She'd take all the time she needed, wouldn't let anyone rush her… Maybe she could surprise them.

THE END

* * *

><p><strong>AN: This is a one-shot ficlet, which means that signing up for story alert will not bring you any alerts.  
><strong>**In the event of a sequel, the story will be separate from this one. And as chapter stories go, they are  
><strong>******always clearly indicated as such [ex: "Days 204-210" in the summary] Thank you!******

* * *

><p><strong><strong><strong>PS: I'm going to work to find a way to make a list available of the various series, I just need to find a way to make the link available, since this site seems to have an issue with putting links to stuff ;)<strong>****


End file.
